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Dec. 6, 2016 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
33:40
Not Being Racist is the New Racism
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The handsome chap in the thumbdale is John Iadarola.
He's a co-host for The Young Turks and he has his own separate YouTube channel, on which he uploads 5-10 minute rants about him talking about a specific subject.
He put a video up after the Tommy Lara and Trevor Noah interview on the Daily Show, and the video is such a comprehensive look into the regressive mindset that I just couldn't pass it up.
I think he's acting entirely in good faith, so I'm going to take him completely at his word.
I'm going to assume that what he is literally saying is what he literally believes, because I can't see why he wouldn't say what he actually believed on his own private channel.
So let's have a look.
Before I talk about the performance or what I think it means, I have to preface this by saying that I have met Tommy Lauren in person before.
She seemed like a lovely person, as you so often hear.
Regardless of what a person does online, very often they turn out to be quite nice to you when you actually meet them, and she was to me.
I have no idea why he finds that to be a surprise.
I would expect everyone to be nice or at least polite in person, even if they were my worst enemy.
It's just something about being an adult, I suppose, and treating other people with the modicum of respect you'd be expected to be shown yourself.
I've also been on her program on The Blaze, and she was perfectly fine on there.
I guess she must have done the Roman salute while you were out of the room, John.
Now, that was a long time ago.
A lot has changed since then, and her star has risen quite a bit during that time, largely based on her videos, not just having to do with politics, but specifically having to do with her grievances against African Americans and the way they engage in politics.
And already we're off to a flying start.
John, black Americans participate in politics like white Americans do, or like Hispanic Americans do.
They go to the fucking voting booth and they vote.
They go on social media, they make their opinions heard.
Black Lives Matter does not simply just represent black people because they claim to represent black people.
There was no vote, John.
They have no legitimacy.
They were not elected.
They are self-appointed.
And you're saying, yeah, sure, you're black.
You claim to speak for black people.
Therefore, you must be legitimate.
Honestly, I really want you to think about this, John.
Imagine if the Ku Klux Klan was polling at like 65% white support.
And you hate the KKK.
Would you want some black presenter going, well, these people speak for white people?
Would you want them?
You'd be like, no, I didn't vote for them.
They don't speak for me.
I'm a white person.
You are wrong.
But in this case, you are prepared to do exactly the opposite and marginalize the minority of black people who actually don't show explicit support for Black Lives Matter.
So a recent Pew Poll showed that only 4 in 10 Americans support Black Lives Matter, with 40% of whites supporting the movement compared to 65% of blacks.
Do you know what the great irony of this is, John?
That's right.
There are more white Americans supporting Black Lives Matter than there are black Americans supporting Black Lives Matter.
By your logic, because white people are expressing themselves politically by supporting Black Lives Matter, that makes Black Lives Matter a white movement.
And this is by overwhelming numbers, just so you know.
For every one black supporter Black Lives Matter potentially has, they have three white supporters.
But what's really interesting is the breakdown of who is actually supporting Black Lives Matter because, again, John, I just want to tell you, black people are not a monolith, and Black Lives Matter does not represent them as a whole.
Black voters residing in households with an annual income of less than $60,000 and more than $150,000 held strong preferences for a candidate's support of Black Lives Matter.
But those making between $80,000 and $100,000 annually were much more likely to support the candidate focused on economic opportunity and self-determination.
Middle-class black voters don't support Black Lives Matter, whereas poor and wealthy black voters do.
I imagine the poor support them because they directly advocate for their self-interest, and the wealthy do it as a way to virtue signal.
And this article from The Atlantic takes the time to stress that Black Lives Matter has not achieved the level of influence over voting behaviour that the civil rights movement did in 1964's presidential election when blacks coalesced behind the candidate in favour of sweeping civil rights legislation.
I personally suspect that's because the civil rights movement was universally beneficial to black people.
They all benefited.
They didn't take anything away from white people by having the same rights.
However, with Black Lives Matter, we see a lot of anti-white bigotry coming from members of the movement.
Almost every time you see a Black Lives Matter protest, whenever any one of them is interviewed for the camera, they show anti-white bigotry, which is why the middle-class blacks aren't interested, because they don't feel like victims.
And unlike the rich black voters, they don't see any need to morally grandstand.
They're not insecure about that, probably because they're too busy working hard and getting on with their lives.
I'm sure you won't be surprised to find that among white voters, 51% of young white Americans between 18 and 30 strongly or somewhat support the Black Lives Matter movement.
I personally would assume this is because they've been propagandized since they were kids by progressive outlets saying things like this.
How to be a white ally.
Fighting racism is your responsibility.
Start now.
I mean, you couldn't mistake that for anything other than a massive guilt trip as a way of telling people: look, if you aren't doing this, then you are morally reprehensible.
You are not fighting racism.
You are not doing your part.
But do remember, dear white friends, you can support Black Lives Matter without making it about you.
You know, especially if you get arrested by the cops and there's a photo of you being held down by riot police.
Don't, don't try and make this all about you.
But listen to this.
While I worried for a moment whether Max's head was okay, I certainly didn't fear for his life.
Max is white, and so far, police haven't killed white people at the same rate they have killed black people.
That doesn't mean they haven't killed white people at all, but apparently this author only thinks in statistics, and they think, well, I mean, if they are more likely to kill black people, that means they effectively don't kill any white people.
Even if the number of white people is actually higher than the number of black people per capita, it's lower, so I don't have anything to worry about.
And that is the case!
It's just, it's just, these people, they don't think individuals matter.
I mean, the rest of this article, I won't go through it, but the rest of this article is her lamenting that people were on his personal social media feeds, people were commenting on the picture of him being held down by the cops, saying, dude, you're my hero, I really appreciate that.
And she complains they're not talking about Black Lives Matter when talking about his individual actions.
So that's the data you left out of your analysis, John.
35% of black people either don't support or actively oppose Black Lives Matter, and the majority support for Black Lives Matter comes from white people.
So go on, tell me more about how this is African Americans being political.
Just go on.
Just marginalize.
You're not even marginalizing that 35%.
You're telling me they don't exist when you say that Black Lives Matter is African Americans engaging with politics.
I think that someone watching the interview comes away from that thinking, nah, she's perhaps not very reasonable on these issues.
And you saw it with the audience as well.
Now, I understand these are libs that are going to make up his audience, but they laughed out loud at a couple of the things that she said.
Spoken like a true partisan.
As someone who's not part of your movement or part of her movement, I was looking at it thinking, well, he's not addressing any of her points.
And she is actually bringing up legitimate issues that he is deliberately avoiding.
And I'm not surprised that your audience or his audience, and probably yours as well, would voice their displeasure or amusement at what she said.
In the same way that if Trevor Noah had gone on her show in front of an audience, the exact same thing would have happened, John.
I mean, come on, you must understand that that's an incredibly biased perspective you have.
And including that, she doesn't see race.
And I want to do a quick little public service announcement for people who are racists or who are being called racists.
If you say you don't see race, people hear that as, I am a racist.
What?
I'm going to have to play that again.
I must have misheard that.
If you say, you don't see race, people hear that as, I am a racist.
John, that's the most incredible thing I have ever heard in my life.
What kind of double think is that?
Saying I don't see race is a shorthand for saying I do not judge people based on their race.
That doesn't factor into my decision making.
That is the essence of not being a racist.
I mean, what do you think the end of racism would look like if it were to hypothetically exist?
It would look like people who, when they interacted with each other, didn't take their race into account as a factor when making decisions.
I mean, that's literally not having a prejudice about their race.
Because their race, unless you're a doctor and this is a medical emergency, isn't really very relevant to almost any decision you could make.
I mean, possibly if it was casting for a Hollywood movie or something, and it was a white actor being cast as black or a black part being cast as a white actor, yeah, I can completely understand race actually being an aesthetic factor there.
But in almost every other realm of life, there is simply no reason to do this.
But this, John, this is just incredible to me.
If you say you don't see race, people hear that as, I am a racist.
When you say people, you mean progressives, because you live in a small echo chamber that is rapidly diminishing in both political power and societal relevance.
And it's precisely because of statements like this.
It's because you and your friends and the people you hang out with and all of the people who confirm your biases by just patting you on the back and saying, yes, John, that is the party line, appear to be crazy to everyone else.
The act of not being a racist, not judging someone based on their skin, is in your mind, racism.
That's an indictment of you, not the person you're talking to.
The person you're talking to can't do any more to not be a racist as an individual.
If you say I have many black friends.
Do you see how back to front your ideology has made your view of the world?
Having black friends is an indication of being racist.
If you tell people you have black friends, people only tell you that because they're under accusation by a lunatic like you who sees racism everywhere and they're saying, no, look, I know black people, I'm friends with black people.
The fact that they are black does not make me discriminate against them.
And for you, that's indication of racism.
I mean, these are sort of shortcuts to finding out what you actually think about the world.
Yes, that's absolutely correct.
I honestly think that the people who say, well, look, I don't really judge people on colour, tend not to judge people on colour.
And I think that they want to talk about the actual issues rather than identity politics.
But people like you who can't do that see it only as an attack on what they perceive to be a victim identity.
I bet if you went into any black neighborhood and asked them, do you want white people to treat you differently because of your race, they would say no.
They would be advocating specifically for them to be, quote, colourblind, John.
It's the same as a guy telling a girl to smile at this point.
Actually, it's nothing like that, John.
That is a description of an interpersonal interaction where a man is trying to get a woman's attention.
A white person saying, well, I don't judge people based on their race is not the same thing as that.
I don't know how I can explain this to you.
That's a white person giving their personal opinion on the world in general.
But you are so inculcated into your ideological position, these phrases have become dog whistles to you.
They're not dog whistles to the people saying them.
The people saying them really mean them.
But you just hear racist.
With all that we know and all the debate that we've had.
Who have you debated, John?
When have you ever sat down and had a public conversation with someone who fundamentally doesn't agree with you on these issues?
Never.
That's when.
You've sat in your little echo chamber, you've stewed and patted each other on the back and gone, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is all, yeah, right, right, right, of course.
If you do that, you don't get out of this interaction what you wanted.
Honestly, it's like Yuri Besminov said.
These people are conditioned to think a certain way, and they can't think another way when presented with any evidence or even any opinions that would contradict this.
He can't see them as anything else other than indicators that this person is not a part of his ideological group and therefore is either a racist or a sexist or whatever identity we're talking about in the meantime.
But for him, I think this is concrete.
I genuinely think he believes this.
I mean, I would suggest that this was a parody if I hadn't been following this guy and the Young Turks for such a long time.
Think about it.
Martin Luther King fits his definition of what a racist is.
Just think about that for a second.
I want to see a world where people are judged by the content of the character and not the colour of their skin.
And to John Iadarola, that man's a fucking racist.
So avoid that language.
Just pragmatically, I'm trying to help you out.
No, you're not.
You're trying to tone police them.
They get to decide what language they use.
You should listen to them and interpret them literally because there's no reason they would in any way be lying to you.
All you can do now is just presume, well, ulterior motive, that person's probably a racist.
They're covering it up because having black friends isn't the sort of thing racists would do, so he must be lying.
And so she said that.
She said that the Black Lives Matter movement is the same.
It's the new KKK.
And thankfully he called her on that.
Yeah, but he didn't refute her on it.
They're racial supremacists.
They think black people are more important than white people.
And the white people supporting their movement think black people are more important than white people.
Imagine if there were black people supporting the KKK saying, well, white people are just a better kind of person and we need to be subservient to them.
You'd probably call that person an Uncle Tom, wouldn't you?
Now look, ideally, I would have wanted him to play more of the things that she's said.
She's said not just bombastic things or firebrand things on her show.
That's the language that people use to whitewash what a person actually represents and what they actually believe.
Anybody can be controversial.
Anybody can be a firebrand.
Those aren't condemnations.
They're barely even just descriptors.
Those are in firebrand's a good thing, actually.
And so to allow a person to hide behind the label of being a firebrand when they are something far worse in practice, if not in the deepest recesses of their soul, that's a disservice.
Are you suggesting that Trevor Noah should have just come out and said to her face that she was a racist?
That he should have introduced her to the audience as a racist.
And I just want to point out, John, that in practice, she's not being a racist.
Now I understand, having done a few interviews myself, it's difficult to keep a person to task when you want to demonstrate who they actually are and what they actually are, especially if they're quick-witted and intelligent.
And Tommy Lauren is, if nothing else, incredibly quick-witted.
She seems like an intelligent enough person, absent more of a respect for the truth, I would say.
Yeah.
Yeah, she's missing a respect for the truth, John.
I mean, you're the one misrepresenting her.
You're the one calling her a racist when she's specifically acting in a non-racist way.
But you are the one with respect for the truth.
And so when you try to pin them down, they will continually move the goalpost and change topics.
What?
Did we watch the same interview?
That's what Trevor Noah did.
He'd ask her a question.
She'd give him a concrete answer that he obviously couldn't refute because he would just change the subject.
He would move the goalposts.
Now that said, I was frustrated when I found out that Tommy Lauren was going to be on the Daily Show.
And not because I dislike her or anything like that.
I find her to be one of the most entertaining of that brand of conservative media figures.
So what's the problem then?
It's an interesting conversation.
Certainly racked up the views, got people talking.
Seems like a good idea to me.
I think we should have more conservatives go on progressives and progressives go on conservatives talk shows.
I think it'd be really interesting.
I was a bit annoyed because if you're going to start to bring on people who are doing big things online and getting a lot of shares and a lot of views, it seems laughable to me that you would have Tommy Lauren on, but Jenk Uger, who has received literally billions of views, hasn't ever been on.
So salt then.
You're salty your boss hasn't been invited on.
So that seems weird.
And until you bring on other people from the internet, if that's the person that you choose, I have to assume that the Daily Show cast and the producers and perhaps Trevor Noah themselves are all racists?
That they're saying something by choosing her.
Oh my god, do you actually think they are saying that they support racism by choosing her?
And what I'm worried they're saying is that those sorts of alt-right media figures and writers and people who make videos deserve special treatment now.
Yes, but that would be a totally irrational thing to think.
That would come from your feelings and your bias rather than anything that's happening in reality.
I very much doubt that Tommy Lauren considers herself part of the alt-right for a start.
And she got 65 million views on a video.
That's huge.
That's why he invited her on.
It wasn't a political statement.
It was because she was so popular.
And they deserve to be elevated above other people, even if the other people are both more intelligent, more knowledgeable about these affairs, but also have larger audiences.
And if that's true, then that's truly scary.
As the Spartans said to Philip of Macedon when he threatened them by saying, if I come to the Peloponnese, I'm going to defeat the Spartan army, I'm going to conquer Sparta, I'm going to rape all of your women, I'm going to enslave your boys, and I'm going to raise the city to the ground.
They replied with, if.
If, John.
If your paranoid, delusional ravings have a basis in reality, yes, that is scary.
If.
And so I was worried when she was brought on.
But I'm also worried about what it represents in a larger sense.
Now, I don't think that Tommy Lauren is the best example of what I'm going to talk about.
She doesn't demonstrate it as much as some others.
Yes, because she doesn't appear to be a racist.
She doesn't appear to do or say anything that is actually racist, John.
Which is why you've got to find a better example elsewhere, because she doesn't seem to be an example of this at all.
But I will talk about someone like having an Ann Coulter on.
Now, I don't know that she's been on the Daily Show, but she's been on Bill Maher's show a number of times.
And there are other people like Anne Coulter.
And the reason I don't think they should be brought on these programs is not because I disagree with them.
Am I supposed to believe that, John?
I mean, I know I said I was going to take it as if you were operating in good faith, but I don't believe you believe that.
Or because I want to censor them or whatever, as if you could censor Anne Coulter if you wanted to.
My question is: would you complain if someone did censor her?
Because I would.
And I don't watch Anne Coulter.
I mean, that's why I haven't said that Anne Coulter isn't a racist.
I don't know anything about Anne Coulter.
Apart from the fact, you don't like her.
And you know what, right?
If the Powers That Be shut down the Young Turks for whatever reason, I would make a video objecting to the young Turks having their channel shut down.
Because free speech is for everyone.
It's not just for the people I agree with.
It's because by bringing them on, you are demonstrating a flaw in being a progressive.
Holy shit, really?
That is an ideological purity test to you.
Whether you will even give a platform to the opposition of youth so you can debate them, presumably destroy them, and prove that your side of the issue is correct is a flaw in being a progressive.
I just want to let you know that that is just one data point among many as to the list of reasons that progressivism is a failed ideology.
And the flaw is that we have too much respect for argumentation.
Give too much respect for the quest to discover the truth.
Holy shit, that's the argumentation.
Got too much respect for the truth of you, John.
And one of the ways that you engage in that quest is through having a debate.
So then why are you arguing to no platform people who disagree with you?
You know, the people whom you would have this debate with.
And he talked about this, Trevor Noah, with Tommy Lauren.
He kept saying we have to be willing to talk to people who disagree with us.
And she said the same thing.
I don't think they mean the same thing when they say it.
I don't think they both mean it quite as much.
Well, yes, but surely that's obviously informed by your own bias.
Because you personally don't think he should have had her on and think that he should have had your boss, someone you're a lot more friendly with.
Isn't it?
I mean, it seems obviously the case.
Now, when I try to bring up points and argue, it's because my hope is that while I'm unlikely to change the mind of the person on the other side, the reason being that people don't actually listen and they don't generally learn anything.
And because the person you're debating with is already a progressive and already on your side on all of these issues.
The idea is that perhaps people in the middle who are watching might find out something.
And I can bring all sorts of people across the political spectrum onto the show to attempt to engage on the other side of the issues in that same process.
And so when does the Young Turks ever do that?
Why is it every time I watch the Young Turks?
You've got a panel and often it's different people on this panel, but they all agree on the subject.
They all have exactly the same perspective on that subject, down to very minor details that don't change the meat of the argument.
Honestly, if the Young Turks had any integrity, they would get people on with whom they disagree to talk about these issues.
I do this all the time on my live stream channel.
I do this as often as I can.
Get as many people, as well-informed people as I can, to talk about these issues.
For example, I had a chat the other day with a guy called Destiny.
He's a Twitch streamer, but he's very progressive, and he's very well-informed on these issues, and we got to have a good, informative discussion about the topic.
That is not something that happens on the Young Turks, is it, John?
But there are people who are not coming onto your program to do that.
Anne Coulter doesn't genuinely believe things that are contrary to what you believe in politics.
I'm just going to skip past the fact that you probably have no idea what Anne Coulter actually thinks.
And what you're doing here is poisoning the well against the idea of having outside influences in your echo chamber.
She doesn't give a fuck about any of that.
How do you know this?
If she said or did something that could give you reason to infer this, then I would agree.
But as far as I can tell, your objection to her is that she is a conservative who says outlandish things.
That doesn't mean she doesn't believe them.
That means you don't believe them.
She hasn't expressed an honest opinion in literally decades.
I don't think I could tell you a single one of Anne Coulter's opinions.
And just by the way you're talking about her, I'm more inclined to believe she's telling the truth.
Just so you know.
Just as one outside viewer to the inner circle of the Young Turks, just letting you know that when you speak and make a judgment about other people, I think you're wrong.
Not that you're necessarily trying to lie.
I just think that you are actually incapable of representing their opinions accurately because you have discussed non-racism as being racism.
And so, yeah, just so you know, I think better of the people you denigrate.
What she has is a list of carefully crafted positions designed to get publicity.
Her goal is not to persuade, it is to be paid.
John, that's such an asinine point.
I really am loath to have to refute it, because it will sound like a defense of Anne Coulter.
And I don't know anything about Anne Coulter, and I've got no interest in defending her.
The reason that this is a vacuous thing to say is that that is an allegation that can be laid at the feet of anyone in any industry in any time.
Because if they're being paid to do something, and most people get paid to do the things that they do as their job, then there is, by default, a level of self-interest.
In fact, it's a given.
People don't do things outside of their self-interest without a good reason.
In fact, I'd be hard-pressed to find an example of people doing something where there is literally no self-interest at all.
And that includes you doing this.
You think this makes you a good person.
Your self-interest is in self-actualization.
So you do this because you think it makes you decent.
And that's the same for anyone who thinks that their political ideology is also their moral code.
And you are not obligated simply because you're an open-minded, progressive, tolerant individual to let that person do that to you.
Oh yeah, that's progressive, open-minded, and tolerant, isn't it?
Finding a reason not to hear opposing views on the basis that you presume they're just doing it for the money.
Unlike the Young Turks, who I'm sure don't take sponsorships from AJ Plus, Qatar's fucking propaganda outlet, for the money.
No, no, no, it's because the Qatari government is so morally upright and ethical.
Now you can bring on all sorts of conservative writers, conservative people in the media, and you can go back and forth and disagree, and they actually care about that process.
Yeah, but John, how will you know?
I mean, at any point, you could just go, you know what?
I disagree, and I think you're doing this just for the money, so make sure you don't have that person on again.
I mean, you understand that this is an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
There is never a time when you can be sure that the person is not doing it for the money.
Because the only people you guys interview on the Daily Show or the Young Turks or whatever media outlet it is are professionals who get paid to do it full time.
The only way your accusation would ever be invalid is if you just got some rando off the street who worked in a shop or something to give their opinion.
But not everybody does.
And while Ann Coulter is the best example and there are some others I can bring up, I haven't yet entirely decided on Tommy Lauren.
I believe that she probably believes some portion of what she's saying.
That's a very nice way of calling her a liar, John.
Would you say that to her face?
Would you say, Tommy, look, I mean, I'm sure you do believe some portion of what you're saying, but the rest of it is bullshit, isn't it?
And you know it's bullshit and you're here to deceive us to get paid.
Say that to her face, John.
I want to see you say that to her face.
I want to see what her reaction would be to that.
I want to see what the audience's reaction would be to that.
I want everyone to see you being a tremendous asshole to a guest you invited onto your show.
But I'm in this industry and I know the corrupting influence of people watching you and becoming bigger.
Right, so am I to assume that you are speaking from personal experience when you say these people do it just to get paid?
Because now you're making it sound like you do it just to get paid.
And especially if it happens all at once, you can literally see the corruption take over a person.
If a person has been struggling to get an audience for literally years, and then all of a sudden they say something or talk about a particular sort of story and people pick up on it and they start to share it, they get really interested in it, well, you don't think that they notice that?
And they think, holy shit, this blew up.
Honestly, I really do feel like you're just giving me an insight into the inner workings of the young Turks.
But yes, I will agree that there is certainly an incentive for people to talk about something that is important to other people, especially when they're in broadcast media and they're trying to talk to people to persuade them around to a particular point of view because all other points of view appear to be bassy.
I mean, you could say that they're being predatory and just looking for a thing to talk about to get the clicks in the ad revenue, or it could be that they are legitimately responding to genuine public interest.
So rather than ad homining the person by saying, well, they're just doing it for the money, let's just discuss the issues, because ultimately, it doesn't really matter whether they are doing it for the money or not.
The issues remain the same and the correct answers will will out.
But in the meantime, you wander off into the long grass of character judgments before you even know the person and without ever really touching the issue.
Maybe I'll do another one.
And if that blows up, maybe I'll do another one.
And so you can see, and I think that if you go back over the last year, you'll notice some of these, shows that have all of a sudden become about one particular sort of story.
People in glass houses, John.
That's all.
Now, in the best case scenarios, maybe there is some personal passion there that has driven them.
But in a lot of cases, it is a desire to be paid.
Best case scenario, they simply want more views and shares.
Worst case scenario, they literally just want the ad revenue.
No, you said best case scenario, they genuinely have a passion for what they're saying.
Don't walk that back.
I think that is the best case scenario, is that they genuinely have a passion for what they're saying, and being paid is a byproduct of them expressing themselves on the issue.
Don't make it even sound even worse.
I mean, you couldn't be trying to delegitimize your opposition any more than you already are.
And it doesn't matter whether you consider them to be legitimate or not.
These issues are going to be debated, whether you want them debated or not.
So you may as well be part of the conversation and have them on your platform to discuss it.
Unless, two things.
A, you think you have such hegemonic control of the media that you can simply prevent them from being heard.
Or B, you think having them on your platform is going to do damage to your platform.
And she blew up?
Now, does she, is she a conservative?
Yes, I'm sure she's a conservative.
Does she believe some crazy things?
Yes.
Do some of those crazy things have to do with Black Lives Matter and African American individuals in America?
Probably so.
I'm just enjoying this now.
I'm just loving him accusing other people of believing crazy things.
John, I just want to remind you, you said this.
If you say you don't see race, people hear that as, I am a racist.
But anyway, let's carry on.
But how the hell do we know at this point?
You don't.
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